Between Transnational Mobility and Locality.
Highly skilled immigrants in local communities of Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone
How is national identity created, sustained, and transformed in the condition of global mobility? How does the presence of immigrants change the identity of the local population? How does the local population change the identity of immigrants?
These are the questions that “Transnational Mobility and Locality Highly skilled immigrants in local communities of Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone” research aims to answer. The project is conducted by the Sociology Institute of Warsaw University of Social Sciences and Humanites (SWPS), Faculty in Wrocław. The Team is led by Dr hab. Krzysztof Jaskułowski (Professor of SWPS) who received the Opus grant from The National Science Centre for this project. Team members combine their expertise within the fields of sociology, ethnology, anthropology and human geography. The project commenced in July 2014 and will end in July 2017.
Project objectives
The main research objectives of the project are twofold:
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On the one hand we are interested in the issue of constructing, maintaining and transforming national identity among highly skilled migrants in Wałrzbych Special Economic Zone „INVEST- PARK” in the conditions of global mobility and the impact of socio-cultural interactions with the local population;
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On the other hand we focus on the impact of immigrants on national identity of the local residents in selected localities
We want to answer question to what extent global mobility has led to formation of localities that consist of highly diversified networks including local and foreign inhabitants, workers, their routines in these localities and the connections with other localities and how it affects the national identity of local inhabitants. We define the locality with the use of Massey’s definition of place. Thus, our research topic is to identity the dynamics among both – immigrants and different categories of local residents, including the transformation and immigration impact on locality. We will conduct this analysis deploying a concept of multiple embeddedness that we will adapt to the needs of this particular study. It will enable us to avoid the ethnic lens in our analysis.
Following cultural studies theorist Stuart Hall we assume that an identity is a social construction, a process that is never complete, a process which is always in progress. In other words, drawing on cultural studies, sociological and anthropological literature we presume that identity can be properly conceptualized only in terms of „being” or „becoming” and cannot be treated as a some kind of thing which simply “is”, just “out there”. Moreover, we agree with Richard Jenkins that „all human identities are by definition social identities”, because identifying ourselves or others involves interaction. To avoid reification and falling into holistic fallacy we focus not on collectively understood national identities but rather on the complex processes of social identification and categorization. Thus in the center of our research interest is the complex interplay of internal group identification and external categorization which seems to be critical to the process of social identity formation. It should be also stressed that we do not assume a priori, especially in case of immigrants, that their master identity is necessarily national in its character, but we leave this question to be answered during our research.
This will be a comparative study conducted in the cities and towns of strongly under researched Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone. Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone was formed in 1997 in order to encourage international business to invest in the deprived post mining area and to speed up development of the region. As a result this location has recently experience the phenomenon of opening of branches of the big international companies and the immigration of highly skilled professionals and managers and their families from different parts of the world. We want to explore how the formation of the special economic zone, arrival of international companies and in results the immigration has changed this area. These foreign high skilled professionals and managers are fairly diverse and they consist of immigrants from both the European Union and from outside the Union, inter alia: the Germans, Swiss, American, Dutch, Korean, and Japanese. In our project, we assume that immigrants cannot be considered only in terms of individual or in terms of particular coherent national groups. In other words, we are interested not only in individual migrants, but also in their families - the units where decisions about migrations are made and the identity is negotiated.
We also want to research different localities of this Zone to explore how the connected to them people form their national identity. We want to investigate foreigners and Poles and as we have already noticed we do not treat any of these groups as homogenous. We assume that the national categories are not the only ones shaping the people’s identities, hence the need to take into account also the different experiences of internal and international migration, the social status, age or gender. Additionally, reifying the concept of the host society is in fact shorthand: this term does not refer to any sociological reality, but to many different categories and groups which have very different ideas and relationships with immigrants. An important premise of the project is therefore the belief that one should avoid misleading and reifying dichotomy "immigrants" and "host society" as one of the manifestations of "groupism" and a kind of "methodological nationalism".
By developing our research project in the way we describe, we avoid treating nationality and ethnicity a priori as the main characteristic shaping a person’s identity. Avoiding the “ethnic lens” or “methodological nationalism” is a postulate that has become stronger and stronger in the last years in the migration research but as even the postulating researchers admit it is still not fully incorporated in research practice.
Our research project is a comparative one. We want to compare how different types of relations between foreigners and Poles shape the national identity of both the immigrants and Poles. The preliminary research conducted by our team shows that the high skilled migrants have different ties with bigger and smaller cities. Even if their companies are located in smaller towns they prefer to live in a bigger one and commute to work. We preliminary assume that the study will be conducted in a few selected locations:
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In a large city (above 500 thousand residents) - Wroclaw.
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In two medium-sized towns (between 100 thousand - 200 thousand residents) - Wałbrzych, Opole.
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In two small-sized towns (to 65 thousand residents) - Świdnica, Żarów, Śrem, Biskupice Podgórne.
Research Questions
Since our research is mostly qualitative we form the research questions but do not need to form the hypothesis sensu stricto. The more precise hypothesis will be developed at the further stage when we will move to the quantitative stage of our research project. However, we enrich our research questions with several preliminary hypotheses. From analytical point of view taking into account the general problem outlined above we can distinguish four blocks of questions which, however, in practice are interconnected in a complex way. Thus, our research aims at answering four blocks of interrelated research questions:
1) What role does national identity play in the social identity of immigrants? How do different categories of immigrants connected with chosen localities define their national identity? Taking into account the assumed membership of immigrants to "global class", whose members belong to the space of flow and feel the same well in transnational space, of particular interest seems to be the following questions:
a) What are the relationships between global, corporate, and national and other levels of identity?
b) What identity can be perceived as a master identity (as if at all)?
c) What role does gender impact the construction of national identity?
Hypothesis 1: National identification is formed in relation to “Other”. We expect it to be the more intense the more foreign the “Other” is perceived.
Hypothesis 2: National identification will vary in intensity depending on country of origin. One can assume an important role of national identity, especially among immigrants from Asian countries: Japan, Korea, due to the collective way of thinking, as well as ethnic understanding of the nation and the relative uniformity of these societies - nationality is one of the main principles of social classification.
Hypothesis 3: Immigrants, who settled within WSSE and who are members of European Union, are expected to define themselves more in terms of European identity than in national ones.
Hypothesis 4: Strong identification with corporation coexists with national identification. The corporation is treated as a national icon, such as LG as a company which is a typical Korean icon of modernity, technological development and economic success which marked the Korean nation.
Hypothesis 5: The national identification can be exchangeable with a European one in some cases.
2) What is the impact of immigration on identity of immigrants? We are particularly interested in:
a) The role of ties with the country of origin, as well as the form of maintaining contacts with the country of origin for the sustenance and transformation of identity immigrants, il. e. the question of transnationalism and multilocality.
b) What is the impact of mobility on the perception of place in general and in the new place of residence in particular: for example, how many immigrants "feel" that they live in Poland, Lower Silesia or in Central Europe? In relation to this question we need also to reflect on the fact that some people who never migrate may have a feeling of displacement due to the contacts with foreigners in their neighbourhood and also due to ‘creolisation of culture’.
c) The transformation of identity as result of intercultural contacts with the migrants of different ethnic backgrounds and with Poles of varying social and economic status. We are interested in the migrant's networks, as well as the places, where these contacts occur (mainly: the workplace - employees and local communities, residence, and various types of institutions such as nursing facility health, entertainment, etc.). How do immigrants "cope with" in these contacts? What adaptation strategies do they use?
d) How do immigrants perceive Poles and other ethnic groups? In particular, the question of stereotypes and meta-stereotypes.
e) A variety of immigration experiences, especially in relation to gender: what are the differences between male and female experience of migration?
Hypothesis 1: The people with high social, cultural and economic capital who due to the means, resources and capabilities live in a much wider transnational space than the closed framework of the zone, region or the Polish state, hence, one can assume, have the weak attachment to the current place of residence.
Hypothesis 2: Immigrants who stay temporarily in Poland have small and selective interest in local culture.
Hypothesis 3: Due to the traditional model of the family of immigrants from Asian countries women take on most of the daily responsibilities of running the household and raising children. The common migration strategy of migrants’ households is a wife who gives up a job to follow her husband or a wife giving birth to the child and taking maternity leave to be able to accompany her husband. Women have therefore more opportunities for contact with the external environment.
3) What changes are taking place in localities as a result of immigration? We are especially interested in the following questions:
a) How local residents 'cope with' foreigners? Are foreigners excluded? Or are they treated as a necessary evil, "exploiters", ignored or perhaps perceived as an integral part of the social landscape? How does it impact their national identity?
b) How does the identity of the place change under the influence of immigration? Is it perceived as more “modern”, e.g. international, transnational or perhaps “corrupted” e.g. losing its national character?
c) What are the stereotypes and meta-stereotypes of immigrants? How does the identity of the place change under the influence of immigration?
Hypothesis 1: We assume that highly skilled immigrants due to their significant cultural, social and economic capital will be important vehicles for changes, for example regarding work culture or leisure styles.
Hypothesis 2: Based on the global cities theory developed by Caglar and Glick Schiller we expect that immigrants' presence is more important for the image of the place in Wrocław than in the smaller towns. Their presence is "visible" both in infrastructure (e. g, ethnic restaurants) and symbolic form (e. g. image of Wroclaw as a meeting place).
Hypothesis 3: Attitudes towards “Other” migrants will vary depending on place of living, the frequency of intercultural contacts, economic and social status. For example, the opinions on immigrants in Wrocław will be more open or more neutral.
4) What is the image of immigrants in the local press and in local internet portals? Research will be carried out based on an analysis of the local press and will cover the period from the inception of the zone from 1997 to 2014. Analysis will also include online and comments. We are interested in:
a) How often do articles on immigrants appear in local media?
b) What is the image of immigrants in local media?
Hypothesis 1: Local press focuses primarily on the "exotic" immigrants from countries commonly considered to be culturally
distant, such as Japan, South Korea.
Hypothesis 2: Press raises a particular topic of immigrant managers mainly in the context of conflicts between employers and
employees, violations of labor rights, frictions with trade unions, different work cultures.
Hypothesis 3: The issue of immigration arises primarily in the context of new investments which create the opportunity to employ
local people and reduce the unemployment rate, a senior managing immigrants are seen through the prism of the transfer of new
technology and knowledge.